Pointless Exercises
by clair beaubien
Summary: Tag Scene to It's A Terrible Life. Dean and Sam talk about their experience. I posted this already then they told me it didn't exist anymore. So - here it is again.


When Dean got to the front door of the office building, he was relieved to see Sam right out front, sitting on the hood of the Impala. His head was down and he was pinching the bridge of his nose. He was still wearing his tan chinos and yellow uniform shirt.

"That's a good look for you." Dean told him.

"Shut up."

"I think we could sell my suit on Ebay and pay for our gas for a month."

"You do that." But Sam didn't lift his head. His eyes were squeezed shut.

"Headache?"

"Yeah."

"Take anything?"

"I don't have keys." His voice sounded as pinched as his expression. Dean had a moment of panic until he found the keys in his front pants pocket. He popped the trunk and brought out a bottle of water and a couple of heavy duty painkillers.

"Here."

"Thanks." Sam swallowed the pills with most of the water. "I swear, the next angel tries to lay his mojo on me, I'm taking him out."

"D'you get the pep talk too?"

"_Pep talk_?" Sam asked, sounding surprised, then sounding angry. "No, I didn't get a pep talk. I got what I always get from the angels - a big wet nothing. Just a thump on my forehead and -" He waved his hand, indicating the car and building and where they were standing.

Dean didn't know if he should tell Sam what Zachariah had told him. He didn't want to add to Sam's funk. Turned out he didn't have much of a chance anyway as Sam kept griping.

"You know, I am _so_ tired of these angels and their pointless exercises in jerking us around. Three weeks? _Three weeks_ to kill one ghost? We could've killed twenty ghosts in three weeks." He took another gulp of water and shook his head. "Pointless."

"Maybe it wasn't pointless." Dean said.

"Anything that doesn't help you is pointless."

Dean was surprised and warmed by Sam's words. Still...

"_Maybe it wasn't pointless_." He said again. Sam turned to him in surprise.

"What?"

Dean shrugged.

"We had no clue who we were, what we do, we still worked together to kill that ghost. If nothing else, it showed that we belong together."

"Like we needed angels to tell us that." Sam said derisively. Then he gave Dean a pained look. "You _didn't_, did you?"

"No, I don't need angels to tell me that."

Sam stared at him a minute, like he was gauging whether Dean was telling the truth. Finally,

"Three weeks they kept us apart." He said. "Like I haven't spent enough away from you already." He shook his head and drank some more water. "So - what was the pep talk you got?"

"Uh - that this life is a gift?"

Sam stared at him again, angry this time, angry and getting angrier.

"_A gift?_ First they get you nearly killed, then right after that, when you're still getting better, right when I needed to be with you, they keep us apart for _three weeks?_ How is that a gift? Hunh? How is that not pointless?"

Dean didn't know how to answer. He stepped off the curb and leaned back against the hood next to Sam. When he didn't answer, Sam sighed.

"So - what else did Cas tell you?" He asked.

"Uh - well - it - uh -." Dean rubbed the back of his neck. "It wasn't Cas. It was Zachariah."

"_Zachariah_?"

"Yeah - uh - Cas' boss."

Sam stared at him, eyebrows raised in surprise. Finally, to Dean's surprise, he actually laughed. A short, not-entirely-amused laugh, but still a laugh.

"What?" Dean had to ask.

"The way we're going through angels, by the time this war is over, we'll be dealing with God Himself because there won't be anybody else high enough to boss us around."

"Sure seems that way." Dean agreed. "So - you okay?"

Sam just shrugged and rolled the water bottle in his hands.

"You really upset about the three weeks?" Dean pressed. "Hey - maybe it was a vacation. You know, you never left the hospital while I was there, you took care of everything while I was getting better. Maybe they thought you needed a vacation.

He meant it to be lighthearted, but Sam stiffened.

"Is that what _you _think?"

"What I think Sam, is that ever since I came back from last summer's hot spot, you've been trying to hold up the world. And you got broad shoulders man, but even you have limits."

"Not when it's you." Sam answered immediately. "I don't have limits when it's you."

"You should."

"_Oh really?_ Well tell me Dean, what limits did you have when it was me? How many vacations did _you _take? When Jess died, when I had my visions, when Dad told you I might turn evil - how many vacations did you take? What limits did you put on taking care of me?"

"C'mon Sam -."

"_No._ It's_ not_ different. We're brothers. We look out for each other, we take care of each other. There's no limit on that. At least - at least there shouldn't be."

"Meaning what?"

Sam didn't answer. He finished the water and took a couple of steps to pitch the empty bottle into the trash can next to the phone pole. He didn't step back to sit next to Dean again, he kept his back to him.

Dean flicked his tie a couple of times, watching Sam and thinking things over. Either Sam thought Dean had limits, or he thought he had limits, and since he sure didn't seem to think _he_ had limits...

"Kinda funny, isn't it?" He asked to Sam's back. "I was always the one so gung ho about the job, dragging you with me everywhere. But in there, you were the one who convinced me to get back in the game. What you said - you remembered we were brothers, you convinced me that this is what I was meant to do."

"_I_ convinced you?" Sam asked without turning around.

"All right, no. You didn't _convince _me." Dean walked around and stepped up onto the curb so he could face Sam, so Sam would face him. "You reminded me, you showed me, Sammy you _knew_ me, better than I knew myself."

"And when I told you that, you told me to go away. You said I should leave."

"C'mon Sam, I didn't know who I was. I didn't know who you were."

Sam looked at Dean with his really pissed expression.

"_If you didn't know me, you'd hunt me._ You didn't know me in there and you told me to leave you alone. I'm tired of being the bad guy in all of this."

"You're _not_ the bad guy. I have _never _said you were." Dean looked around. This wasn't the place to have the kind of argument it seemed like Sam was spoiling for. "Look Sam, do we need to have this conversation out here? C'mon, let's find a motel, change out of these Halloween costumes. Hey, maybe I still have my corporate credit card. Hunh? Big time hotel, room service, day spa? What d'you say?"

One tiny corner of Sam's mouth turned up a fraction of a fraction of an inch but that was all.

"What's really going on Sam? Why are you so pissed?"

"You weren't here." Sam said like he was admitting a failing.

"I wasn't here where?"

"When they escorted me out - ."

"You were _escorted_ out?"

"Uh - yeah."

"_Why?_"

"I broke my phone."

Well _that_ obviously wasn't the whole answer and Dean gave Sam his '_don't even try to continue the story until you explain that one'_ look.

"With a fireplace poker."

"Ahh."

"Anyway - when I got to the lobby, Cas was there. All he said was '_Dean has chosen.'_ and he -." Sam made a vague gesture to his forehead. "I came out here, but you weren't here. And I thought - I thought what you chose was - was -."

"Not you." Dean supplied. Sam nodded, kind of shrugged, with a look that was half devastated, half defiant. Like if that was what Dean chose, Sam wouldn't even mind that it ripped his heart in two.

"I'm here Sam. I chose this life, with you."

"_After_ your little 'pep talk'?"

"No. Before. Before I remembered who I am, before I remembered who we are, what you said in there made sense. It made _more_ than sense. It -."

He paused, just a second or two, wanting to get his words right, and Sam watched him with that look, that look that all their lives had Dean reassuring him that Dad would be okay when he really didn't know, buying him new sneakers that they couldn't afford, making sure Sam had food he would eat and coffee he would drink, and a dozen other things just the same.

"It was the first thing that made me feel like _me _in those three weeks."

Sam's expression relaxed; Dean knew he was getting through to him.

"Sammy - when Zachariah woke me up, you know what the first thing was that I realized?"

"That you were hungry?"

_Busted._ Dean smiled though - did Sammy know him or what?

"Okay, the second thing."

Sam shook his head.

"That you weren't next to me. And that you not next to me wasn't right. When I went down to tech support and you weren't there -."

"You went looking for me?"

"Yeah, first thing. When you weren't there I didn't know if you were just in the bathroom or if the angels had sent you away somewhere that I wouldn't be able to find you." He gave Sam a look. "_Of course I didn't know you'd murdered your phone..._but when I didn't see you there - "

"You didn't think maybe I left without you?" Sam asked.

"No, I never thought that." Dean said, and he never _would_ think that. "Would you have left?"

"I thought if I kept finding hunts, people in danger, you'd keep hunting, even part-time, and eventually something would make you remember."

"Really?"

After a moment, Sam admitted, "No. Actually I was gonna sit here until you left and follow you home and nag you until you changed your mind or had me arrested."

"That's the Sammy I know." Dean said. He grinned but Sam only looked pained. "What do you want me to say Sam? I'm here. I chose this life, I chose to fight this fight with you." He waited but Sam didn't say anything. "Sammy - what do you want me to say?"

"Are you okay?"

"What?"

"Are you okay?" Sam asked it like it was an obvious question.

"Yeah." Dean answered, a little puzzled. "_I'm still hungry._ But - yeah. Why?"

"Just want t'be sure." Sam shrugged. "So - y'wanna get out of here?"

"Yeah, let's go."

Dean unlocked the doors and they got in. He couldn't help thinking as he started the car that everything he was finding positive about this experience Sam was finding painful. Were they ever going to see eye to eye on anything again?

Well, Dean thought with a inward chuckle, looking over at Sam, eye to _chin_ anyway. Why did Sammy always have to take things so hard?

"How's your head?"

"Still hurts. Always takes a while for the pills to start working."

"Well they _do_ have a long way to travel."

Sam gave Dean a very blank look.

"All the way back from hell and you still have a lousy sense of humor."

Dean grinned; most of their lives a sarcastic jab was Winchester code for olive branch offered and accepted.

"So..." Sam started when they were on the road. "...this - this - _job_ - helped you?"

Dean wanted to ask, _If I say 'yes', you aren't going to twist my words and accuse me of not missing you, are you?_ But he didn't.

"Sam - hunting this ghost was exciting, and I don't mean the 'wondering how much blood and muscle I'm going to lose this time' exciting. It's like I remembered why we do this, and why I do this with _you._" He shrugged, he wasn't sure he was getting through to Sam. "I just don't think it was pointless."

Sam just kind of shrugged and looked out the passenger window.

"Anything you need to get out of your apartment?" Dean asked him.

"No. You?"

"No."

"You're okay?" Sam asked it like he really needed to know, like just talking to Dean wasn't enough to convince him.

"I'm good Sammy."

"All right." He turned to look out the window again. When he spoke again, it was like he was conceding a battle. "I'm glad it wasn't pointless."

the end.

"And if you had to choose, if you_ really_ had to choose, would you choose me?"


End file.
